Greenvale AP plc, is one of the UK’s largest supplier
of fresh potatoes with sites covering all the major potato
production areas and is the UK’s largest handler of
organic potatoes.
At this site we are outputting between 1400 to 2000 tonnes
per week for the UK market and have just been awarded a contract
to supply Simply Fresh.’ explained Greenvale’s
Chief Engineer, Howard Burton. ‘However, we are continually
looking to improve any aspect of our productivity and, as
an example, replaced a traditional ‘sponge roller table’
(post washing), on one of our lines with an Airknife System
from from ACI.’
‘There were a number of issues we had to address in
the retrofit.’ added Burton. ‘In fitting the air
knives we put in a conventional conveying system but didn’t
want the potatoes to be completely dry after washing. This
required us to get a balance between the feed rate and the
airflow, which wasn't difficult, but more importantly has
saved us a great deal of money in downtime & maintenance
costs.’
In the packing plant, potatoes are forklifted continuously
in 1 tonne crates to each of the seven lines, where they are
tipped into a feed hopper via a vertical ejector lifter. On
the punnet line, the potatoes proceed over a de-stoner, before
entering a tumbling stainless steel drum wash station, which
removes all the soil and undesirables. Exiting the wash, a
chlorinated rinse kills off any bacteria before being fed
onto a draining table and then partially dried by the ACI
Airknife system. ‘We were also conscious of the sponge
tables being a source of bacteria and is another reason why
we are keen to replace them with Airknives.’ stated
Burton.
Once partially dried, the potatoes are conveyed to a manual
sorting station, where unsuitable potatoes - bruised, green,
chipped etc - are picked off by hand.
‘We will completely replace one of our packaging lines
later this year and will specify ACI Airknives as standard.
However, the retrofit of the punnet line has seen excellent
cost benefits, and we will look to retrofit elsewhere without
disrupting production when possible.’ concluded, Howard
Burton.
